I had a look at my membership to asp.net and it was 11th December, 2002.  I can remember trying to setup some different CMS products as I had been using an Access based one from 1999 / 2000 but it was not really what you would call a CMS but a set of output tables from an access DB and it was not for the faint hearted.

I remember getting the email post from Shaun Walker asking about a subscription based community to help fund the growth and from that the initial core team was setup. At that time DNN wasn't really skinnable until John Mitchel setup a cool skinning add on - which was on snowcovered and he had some skins for sale there, and I bought them.  I was really not able to contribute to the level I wanted until a year or so later when skinning became a reality.  That was a wonderful day when DNN 2.0.12 was released, really it was!!

I wasn't really a member of DNN until the forums were retired and we could no longer post on asp.net and there are still around 1900 posts there which have a bit of history, but it has certainly been a journey for me.

This will be my 10th year of DNN and I've met some great people, made a few enemies, won a skinning competition, was a core team member and MVP and have the largest network of DNN users outside the DNN website itself. (apart from snowcovered of course because that's a commercial venture).

I remember one specific day - and that was I broke the theory you could only have 10 panes on a skin, which must have been a conspiracy theory somewhere, and I posted on the forum that I had a problem (or words like that) because I had 11 panes. I can remember the job and remember counting over and over because you could 'only have 10 panes' on a skin.  

I love the developers of DNN who have made things happen from an idea, some code and lots of coffee and late nights!!

And no matter how I look at different technologies, manage several linux and windows infrastructure, I can't bring myself to use and recommend anything else because it really is such a stellar product. 

This is an interesting post with some oldies coming out of the woodwork and it's great to see they are still active and is a testament to the product in an ever fast changing environment.

Here's hoping DNN has a hugely successful 2013.
Nina